CVE-2012-2138 Apache Sling POST Servlets Denial of Service Vulnerability

Medium 5.0 Published Updated

Remote attackers can cause a denial of service via infinite loop in Apache Sling POST servlet by copying ancestor nodes to descendants.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Any signed-in user
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2012-2138?

CVE-2012-2138 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 9 Jul 2012. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

The @CopyFrom operation in the POST servlet in the org.apache.sling.servlets.post bundle before 2.1.2 in Apache Sling does not prevent attempts to copy an ancestor node to a descendant node, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a crafted HTTP request.

Weakness: CWE-264

Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-2138?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.sling:org.apache.sling.servlets.post. It affects 1 product.

PackageAffectedFixed in
org.apache.sling:org.apache.sling.servlets.post MavenAll versions2.1.2
org.apache.sling:org.apache.sling.servlets.post MavenAll versions2.1.2

Products include Apache Org.apache.sling.servlets.post.

How do I fix CVE-2012-2138?

Upgrade org.apache.sling:org.apache.sling.servlets.post to 2.1.2 or later.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2012-2138 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2012-2138 exists.

Public exploit code: 1 Exploit-DB entry.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-342c-f869-5m44.

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